Martin Scorsese’s Silence sheds light on localised Catholic religion in Japan

Martin Scorsese's new film Silence sheds light to the nearly forgotten localised Christian religion in Japan.

According to Variety the movie could make it to the Berlin Film Festival. It is about two 17^th century Jesuit priests who went on a missionary trip to Japan. It stars Liam Neeson, Andrew Garfield, and Adam Driver.

According to Movie Fone, some of Scorsese's best movies include Goodfellas, Taxi Driver, Mean Streets, and Raging Bull. This December 19, Raging Bull celebrated its 35^th anniversary.

According to The Guardian, the film is based on Shusaku Endo's novel of the same name, which explored the martyrdom of the Christian converts of Japan back in the early 1600s. The Tokugawa Shogunate that time banned Christianity and carried out a brutal crackdown on people who follow this faith.

This caused the Christians of that time to go into hiding while still practicing their religion. They were called Kakure Kirishitan, which means hidden Christians. According to local experts there are still a few dozen people who practice this localised version of Christianity.

Hirado is a remote southern island of Japan where this crypto-Christian tradition could have flourished, after St Francis Xavier introduced the religion to Japan back in 1549. After it was ban in the beginning of the 1600s, Japanese Catholics during that time found ingenious ways to practice their faith in clandestine.

The crypto-Christians gather in private houses to pray and conduct Catholic ceremonies. They would create Buddha figurines and Japanese dolls that resemble Jesus or Mother Mary to pray to. They would mix Latin, Portuguese and weird Japanese words to make their prayers sound more like Buddhist sutras. They did not wear any religious accoutrements, especially the crucifix. They passed down the teachings of Christ orally, because keeping a Bible would lead to death.

Shima no Yakata curator Shigeo Nakazano said, "In many ways it was a very Japanese version of Christianity." The museum is located at Ikitsuki, which is an island near Hirado.

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Martin Scorsese, localised catholic religion, Silence, Japanese movie

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